with David Blaska

Groovy! Dems oppose concealed carry and free speech but make peace with pot

(page 1 of 2)

Not quite amnesty, acid, and abortion — but close.

Democrats at their annual state convention are being encouraged to legalize marijuana but to say no to the First and Second Amendments this weekend in Wisconsin Dells.

The progressive party would make criminals of over 200,000 law-abiding Wisconsin concealed carry permit holders. Look at the sneaky way the party of Obama, Jim Doyle, and Jimmy Carter drops the bomb: “We support the right to hunt, to bear arms, a concealed carry ban …”

Whoa! Didn’t that sentence start out by supporting the right to bear arms? The proposed party platform also bans the sale of so-called “assault weapons” (in reality, no different from any other semi-automatic weapon except for cosmetics) and would limit “the size of magazines.”

How the ban on concealed carry would square with an increasing number of judicial rulings is unclear. No, wait. It’s very clear. It would run afoul of settled law. Think particularly of the federal court decision handed down in December 2012 that forced Illinois, the last holdout state, to honor the Second Amendment. (Reported here.) The Second Amendment, Judge Richard Posner wrote for the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, “confers a right to bear arms for self-defense, which is as important outside the home as inside.”

Concealed carry permit holders are not shooting up elementary school playgrounds, Democrats. Permit holders submit to criminal background checks, prove they have been trained in firearms, and pay a fee.

If Wisconsin Democrats have declared war on the Second Amendment, they have made peace with the pusher man. Perhaps so New York Times liberal Maureen Dowd won’t have to jet all the way to Colorado in order to get thoroughly baked, during which she endured “an eight-hour freakout,” Ann of Althouse perspicaciously notes.

I’m surprised she’s willing to write openly about … the classic idiot’s mistake of choosing edible marijuana — which takes some time to kick in — eating some and then — after not feeling enough — eating some more.

Dowd’s drug-addled brain seems to have lit on the liberally-correct notion that what’s needed is more regulation: packaging and labeling requirements and accurate information on correct “dosing.” There’s no dosing information on bottles of alcohol. How high do you want to get?

One of Ann’s commenters offers, “[Dowd’s] freakout started long before she traveled to Colorado to eat any drugs.”

Platform of the darned

The same platform that professes “to hold sacrosanct our civil liberties” proposes gelding the First Amendment by declaring “that corporations are not people and money is not speech.”

That hasn’t stopped candidate Mary Burke’s emails encouraging the Exchequer of the Stately Manor to fund her campaign. Nor, one presumes, will it stop the corporate entity known as the Democratic Party of Wisconsin from speaking, composed as are all corporations, of human beings, not polar bears (in Judge Scalia’s locution).

But wait, there’s more! Wisconsin Democrats this weekend will be asked to support policies that would:

Create a single-payer national health care system “managed by the U.S. government”

Eliminate school choice vouchers

Raise more tax money to pay teachers

Close off free trade

Promote unionization under the watchful eye of union organizers through the card check process

Raise corporate taxes

Take “aggressive action” against climate change

Restore the public intervenor at the DNR

Finance partisan election campaigns with taxpayer money

“Address the grievances that cause terrorism”

Mandate a “living wage” of $19 an hour for a single parent with one child

Provide an “unconditional basic income”

“Unconditional” means you don’t have to, you know, actually work.

That is one blissed-out party! Rumors that the Dem platform is printed on Zig Zag “cigarette paper” have not been confirmed.

Taking a page from the Progressives' playbook, I guess the Republican Party should have had their platform read "We support free speech, open public forums, a ban on Emily’s List spending…"

And here I thought the only Loons I'd hear this year were on my fishing trip on Lac Vieux Desert...

Jun 5, 2014 02:57 pm

Posted by
Anonymous

You forgot the voter ID in the list. Fresh on my mind because I went in for my 50 year old colonoscopy and was required to show ID. Apparently someone would like to have taken my place. Made me laugh. Seems logical place to show your ID to vote and very illogical to show it to have a colonoscopy. Why is this backwards

Jun 5, 2014 04:28 pm

Posted by
Anonymous

So Dave, how about writing a piece on the integrity and ethics of teabagging conservatives such as yourself? You openly brag about signing Hulsey's nomination papers, to wanting to "...cause a little mischief." Explain the ethics of that to me. Explain the ethics, the morality, of helping place someone you don't support on the ballot. Not illegal, sure, but how is that right? And let's see if you can offer a justification that doesn't include a sneering insult to me. I've never done it. I've done nothing that keeps me from looking at myself in the mirror. You can't, or shouldn't, say the same. I'll bet your sainted Tommy G. is embarrassed by you. He'd never do what you did, he had too much respect for the process.C'mon, explain it to me.AnonyBob

Jun 5, 2014 07:38 pm

Posted by
Anonymous

Wisconsin Progressives have long enjoyed support by the regime to turn Milwaukee into Dear Leader Comrade Obama's city of the collectivist future... Detroit.

Jun 5, 2014 09:46 pm

Posted by
Anonymous

Sounds like the democrats are going to push a scorched earth policy. There won't be anything left untouched by their idiocy. The Terminator couldn't destroy civilization as well as they want to.

Jun 5, 2014 10:35 pm

Posted by
redrandall

Anonybob,You always want to be treated fairly and with respect, yet you always refer to Tea Party people as "teabaggers." That's a very disparaging term which refers to a (some would consider perverse)sexual practice. Why don't you refrain from the name-calling and argue the issues with facts and logic?

Jun 6, 2014 08:59 am

Posted by
Anonymous

red:

I'm OK with your request of anon, but why not make the same request of blaska? He has can't comment on anything without insulting the poster. And he takes pride in doing so. Lets not be hypocrites.

Jun 6, 2014 10:10 am

Posted by
Anonymous

Red, it's a term they called themselves by in the early days. The fact they were unaware of how else it is used just symbolized to me their cluelessness; about our history, our constitution and our political institutions. I still think that about them. But you're right, it is rude. I should reconsider using it. But Blaska sets the tone around here and he ain't exactly Mr. Nice.AnonyBob

Jun 6, 2014 12:06 pm

Posted by
coolkevs

Breuer over at Left Business Brain on IB Blogs:"Arguably the only thing more entertaining than all-out conservative internecine warfare would be a slap-and-tickle fight between Clarence Thomas and Bill O’Reilly over whose sexual harassment victim was hotter."Every time I read his stuff, it makes me want to take a shower - Blaska's tone is already toned down compared to that! Sure Blaska's irascible, but that's part of his charm :)

Jun 6, 2014 04:33 pm

Posted by
Mrbillsbrain

We've known for years Democrats can't tolerate the 2nd amendment guarantees in any form.How proud they must be at their convention to now be taking on the First Amendment by doing their best to crush any speech that they find even mildly offensive- especially political speech or political spending. ( Except for the forced payment by union members of course)On the plus side, what with Constitutional amendments (Amendment 1 in this case) taking a long route to approval in congress, in the states, etc it may share the fate of the equal rights Amendment or yore. You have to hand to democrats for coming up with Bill titles that are the opposite of what is being legislated. The Affordable Care Act is the prime recent example.

What is the title of the Senator from New York calling his Constitutional Amendment."Crushing Free Speech for Anybody who disagrees with any democrat anywhere- especially if they work in the Private Sector"? Titles a little long, but then so was the Affordable Care Act....

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About This Blog

Raised on a farm near Sun Prairie, David Blaska is a recovering liberal who spent 18 years in daily newspapers, including 12 at The Capital Times in Madison as a reporter and editor. He served Gov. Tommy Thompson as acting press secretary in 1998 and is a veteran and survivor of 19 years in state government. He served 12 years on the Dane County Board of Supervisors. From December 2007 to November 2011 he wrote the consistently popular "Blaska's Blog" for Isthmus online's "The Daily Page" until, he says, the intolerant liberals ran him off. He blogs from Madison.